Randy H. Katz

Professor Katz is an outstanding teacher, an author of a breakthrough textbook, a caring and effective mentor, and a world-class researcher. As a classroom teacher, he is a magnificent lecturer, and is known to be always well prepared, making the extra effort to make the material more interesting and presentable to the students, and to be deeply involved in all aspects of the class including laboratory, project work, and homework assignments. His textbook Contemporary Logic Design takes an innovative approach to the teaching of the subject Logic Design. It was the first book to show how reprogrammable components could be an important teaching vehicle as well as to integrate modern CAD as part of the discipline of Logic Design. The book has become a commercial as well as an artistic success. He indeed has blazed the trail of educational innovation for others to follow. Professor Katz is an inspirational graduate advisor. Many of his Ph.D. students have gone on to very successful careers in the academia and industries. They all praise Professor Katz glowingly and gratefully. Professor Katz is very well known for his research on Redundant Arrays of Inexpensive Disks (RAIDS). Moreover, he has done outstanding service to the discipline for his contribution at DARPA for which he was recognized with a Distinguished Service Award from the Computing Research Association.